


don't call me crazy (i'm happy)

by chrundletheokay



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Eating Disorders, Emotional Abuse, Explicit Language, Mania, Physical Abuse, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 07:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16572578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrundletheokay/pseuds/chrundletheokay
Summary: "There are mornings when Dennis wakes up feeling so good, he can’t stand to be in his own skin. The happiness feels out of control, an almost manic energy that leaves him on edge."





	don't call me crazy (i'm happy)

**Author's Note:**

> [Trigger warnings below. If, for whatever reason, you'd like to skip them, scroll down to skip ahead to the story.]
> 
> Trigger warnings for Dennis being Dennis, including: descriptions of eating disorder behaviors, weight loss / weight talk, BPD, mania/hypomania, canon-typical abusive behavior/relationships, brief self-harm, sexual behavior as self-harm, brief mention of death, profanity
> 
> (Please let me know if additional trigger warnings would be helpful, or if there's a better way to word any of these.)

There are mornings when Dennis wakes up feeling so good, he can’t stand to be in his own skin. The happiness feels out of control, an almost manic energy that leaves him on edge.

“On edge” is a weird saying, the more he thinks about it. On the edge of what? The edge of his ability to tolerate himself and being in his own skin, perhaps? One false move and he goes tumbling over the precipice into madness. Or maybe it’s the edge of a cliff, holding back the momentum driving him to jump. After all, he knows just as well as anyone that it’s not the waters below that are the problem; it’s the fall that kills you.

On days like these, Dennis scrubs the apartment top-to-bottom, and purifies his life by throwing out everything that feels non-essential. He hates running, but he does it anyway, because running around the neighborhood seems to burn off some of the excess energy boiling up inside his core. Afterward, he pulls out his food logging journal and draws up diet plans and weight charts. He barely eats, or fasts entirely, and compulsively weighs himself any time he finds himself near his scale.

He concocts new schemes to make the bar successful, to make the gang filthy rich so they never have to work another day in their lives. He finds new women to D.E.N.N.I.S. Or, when he’s particularly on the precipice of _whatever it is_ , he goes out to bars and hooks up with strangers in the bathroom or in alleys or at their apartments. Maybe he’s not always as careful as he should be, but it’s hard to care on days like this.

Because _fuck_ , it’s amazing to be alive and vibrant and free. To be attractive and energetic and charismatic. Every day should feel like this. The God Hole is no longer an empty, heavy void. Instead, it buzzes and hums with the life within him, like a black hole looking for energy and light to consume.

Experience says there’s a fall coming, but maybe this time it’ll be different. It feels like it’ll be different. It’s good. _So_ good. And he’s alive. _So_ alive. _Goddamn_ , is he ever alive.

The feeling builds up over the course of the day, or several days, when he’s lucky. It feels like he might explode from happiness. No, he’s definitely going to explode.

It is happiness, right? Explosive, volatile happiness, and something’s going to set him off. He knows it, and the gang knows it. They practically walk on tiptoes around him, careful not to upset him, but he’s like a live wire and everything is so bright and loud and in his face. Someone inevitably fucks up, and he yells and screams and throws things. When he’s got his shit together enough, he runs out of the bar and slams the door behind him, before he allows himself to throw anything too valuable or scratch Mac or say anything too mean to Charlie.

No matter how many times Mac’s asked, he’s never been able to explain it — how feeling so good can feel so horribly uncomfortable. He’s not angry. Or at least, he doesn’t start out that way. He’s happy. He feels good. _So_ happy. _So_ good. _Too_ happy. _Too_ good. Bursting out of his fucking skin with happiness.

_Maybe it’s not happiness after all_ , he thinks after a little too much Jack Daniels on one of those nights. He’s hiding in the back office, after yelling at Dee. He’s scratching patterns raw into his wrist with one of the darts he’d yanked out of the dart board, with the intention of throwing it at his sister.

Maybe it’s only adjacent to happiness, this unbearable feeling. Maybe it’s been too long since Dennis has been truly happy. Maybe it’s been too long since he experienced that emotion in its simple, pure form — unmarred, unblemished by the dangerous undercurrent driving him to scream himself hoarse and tear his skin apart and fuck strangers to prove he’s still on top of the world. Maybe Dennis doesn’t know what happiness even is anymore.

That’s stupid, though. How can anyone not know what happiness feels like, or how to identify it? It’s an easy one to pinpoint. No, the real problem is simply that Dennis’s happiness is too big to fit inside of his body. All of his feelings are. Big, big feelings. Too big.

But happiness is stupid anyway. Feelings are stupid. And big feelings? The worst of all. Fuck them. Fuck big feelings.

**Author's Note:**

> um so I started writing fanfic about five or six months ago? Until then, my first and only attempt had been forever ago, when I started (and never finished) a shitty Lizzie McGuire fanfic. (Oh, adolescence. What an interesting time that was.)
> 
> I now have tons of documents all over my computer with various bits and pieces of fics. The last time I added up my word count, it was over 150,000 words. Which is three NaNoWriMos. God help me.
> 
> Anyway, it's taken me a while to work up the courage to post anything, but here it is! If you feel so inclined, pls "tell me i'm good tell me i'm good tell me i'm good tellmeimgood" in the form of kudos. (Like Dee, I am desperate for validation tbh.)
> 
> P.S. The title is one I randomly selected at the last minute, because titles are hard. It's from the song "It's Not My Fault, I'm Happy" by Passion Pit.


End file.
